Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki is pleased to share the following news release from the Light Up The Queen Foundation, which is looking for young composers and performers to become part of a local jazz residency program named after jazz great Boysie Lowery. Wilmington’s Acting Cultural Affairs Director, Tina Betz, is heading up the search for talented young people who would like to participate in this year’s residency program based in Wilmington.
The Light Up The Queen Foundation today announced the official open call for applications from composers/performers, ages 17 to 25, who would like to be participants in the 2018 Boysie Lowery Living Jazz Residency Program. This year’s program will be held in Wilmington, Delaware, June 10-24, 2018. The Residency is fully subsidized, including meals and housing. Johnathan Whitney serves as the Program Director.
Applications will be accepted until 5:00pm on March 31, 2018. Applicants may submit their information or learn more about the program by visiting www.boysieloweryjazzresidency.com.
Between 12 and 15 young people will be selected for a two-week residency in performing, composing, arranging and improvisation. The Boysie Lowery Living Jazz Residency is designed to give participants an intense learning experience that will help them begin to find their sound, mature as a player, mature as a musician, and make lasting connections with like-minded peers. Participants will be introduced to a variety of harmonic, melodic, sonic, and textural possibilities, and then be asked to apply them to new compositions.
The residency program will include numerous semi-public performance opportunities, culminating with a final concert to be performed on June 24 at the historic Queen Theater in downtown Wilmington. The 2018 residency is being presented in collaboration with the City of Wilmington’s 30th Anniversary DuPont Clifford Brown Jazz Festival.
About Robert “Boysie” LoweryThe Boysie Lowery Living Jazz Residency is named after and inspired by the late Robert “Boysie” Lowery. After moving to Wilmington, Delaware in the 1940’s, Lowery began his extraordinary career as a jazz educator. For over 50 years, he taught hundreds of aspiring musicians. His most noted pupil was the late Clifford Brown, considered by many to be the finest trumpeter of the time. Clifford began his study with Lowery at the age of 12 while a student in Wilmington’s public schools. Lowery’s list of pupils also includes some of the finest jazz musicians to come out of the Delaware Valley, including Lem Winchester, Ernie Watts, Abdu-Rashid Yahya, Marcus Belgrave, and Gerald Chavis. In addition, Lowery had been sought out by musicians as far away as Russia (Valery Ponomarev) and Africa (Hugh Masekela). Prior to his death in 1996, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation awarded Lowery with its 1995 Living Legacy Award.
About the Light Up The Queen FoundationThe Light Up The Queen Foundation, a Delaware 501c3 non-profit corporation, is dedicated to the revival of the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware, and to assuring that The Queen becomes a catalyst for building community through music, the arts and community engagement programs.